


Catch me as I fall

by Glowsquid



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Keith crying? In one of my fics? It's more likely than you'd think!, Matt Holt is the Best Big Brother Ever, Naxzela, Platonic Kissing, Post-Battle, Swearing, Vulnerability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 09:43:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16870654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glowsquid/pseuds/Glowsquid
Summary: After the Battle of Naxzela, Keith isa little shaken upfalling apart at the seams.





	Catch me as I fall

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this back in October for KWmonth on Tumblr (rest in peace) but I only just got around to publishing it so....
> 
> Yeah....

Keith is shaking all over and he wants it to stop. There’s something rattling around inside of his gut like it’s trying to escape, and his legs feel as weak as a newborn kitten’s. His fingers tremble so hard it takes him several tries to unmask. It’s getting hard to breathe; his chest feels constricted and every breath is fragile and _wrong._ His stomach is churning. 

Keith isn’t unfamiliar with the sickening rush of adrenaline. He’d been in enough dangerous situations to know how badly the post-battle hormones could fuck with his body, his emotions, everything really. It would take a while for it to work out if his system, but he would be fine, but it hadn’t felt this strong, this _crippling_ in years. He had almost died about a million times before, what was wrong with him? Well, he’d never almost died like this before.

_Oh god, what had he done?_

“Keith!” 

Keith jumps so hard his feet must have cleared the ground. The sudden shout so close behind him makes his heart rate skyrocket and fresh sweat break out on his palms, and the tentative control he has on his body begins to slip.

“Sorry,” Matt says, “I didn’t mean to frighten you.” 

“It’s okay,” Keith replies, trying to keep his voice steady.

“Okay, look. We need to talk.”

Dread creeps over Keith’s bones like early frost. “About what?”

“About that fucking Kamikaze stunt you pulled back there!” Matt is yelling now. “What the hell was that about, huh?” 

Keith frantically whips his head around, looking for eavesdroppers. He doesn’t see anyone; the hallway they're in is abandoned. Still. “Keep your voice down,” he begs.

“Fine,” Matt whispers. “But answer the question. What did you think you were doing?”

“We needed to get that shield down. If we hadn’t stopped it -”

“Yeah? And what kind of damage do you think your pod would have done? What were the chances if that even making a scratch in that shield

Keith stops to think about it, surprised to find he doesn’t actually know. He runs some quick guess work. “About.. 1 in 5?”

Matt scoffs. "1 in 5. You were about to sacrifice your life on the _1 in 5_ chance that you would actually make a difference. Unbelievable.”

“The mission-” 

“Is more important than the individual. I’ve heard that spiel before. It’s bullshit. You would have died!”

Keith sighs helplessly; the words leave bloody gouges in his heart. _You almost died. You almost died and it would have been your own damn fault_ “Yeah. I guess so.”

“Really? That’s it? I would have had to tell the rest of them, including my sister by the way, that their friend and teammate was dead. That you had killed yourself and I couldn’t stop it. And all I get is a fucking 'I guess so?’ Do you think I could have lived with that? you think they could have lived with that? Did you even think about what you were doing, what that would have done to us?” 

“I, I -”

“Keith.” Matt’s tone is soft, sad, almost afraid. “Do you _want to die?_ ”

“N-no,” Keith stammers. That feverish feeling is stronger than ever, worrying his insides in a vice-like grip and making his legs tremble underneath him. “I don’t -”

And he can’t speak anymore because his chest is being torn apart by a violent sob and suddenly he can’t stop, can’t do anything but hide his face in his trembling hands and cry harder than he has in years. 

Matt steps closer, pulling Keith into a hug and letting the smaller man cling to him. 

“I’m s-sorry, Matt,” Keith cries. “I didn’t think, I d-didn’t know what to do and I -” 

“Shhhh, it’s okay. You’re okay. You made it.” 

“What’s _wrong_ with me?” 

Matt pulled away from him to look into his face. “Nothing, Keith. Nothing at all. I promise. We love you. We need you. _Alive._ " 

Keith can only nod in reply. 

“And don’t let the shit you hear from Kolivan and the Blades get to your head. You are more important to us than any mission, okay?”

Those words bring a fresh wave of tears to Keith’s eyes and he can feel his bottom lip start to tremble.

“Oh, come here.” Matt pulls him into another hug and lets Keith ride out the tremors and the tears, anchoring him to the present. 

“The adrenaline’s got you fucked up, huh.” 

Keith nods against Matt’s shoulder.

“That’s okay. Happens to all of us. You need a minute?”

Keith nods again, and this time he pulls out of Matt’s hug to plunk himself down on the floor, scooching over to lean his back against the wall and tug his knees into him. Matt sits next to him, letting their shoulders brush together. 

They sit in silence for a few minutes, Keith hiccuping faintly, before Matt speaks again.

“Do you want to talk to the others about it?”

By “the others”, Keith knows Matt means team Voltron, and he also knows he doesn’t want to do that. He doesn’t want to see Lance’s horror-stricken expression, or Hunk’s tears, Pidge’s righteous anger, or Allura’s cold look of disappointment. He can’t look Shiro - the man he loved like family - in the eyes and tell him he had almost killed himself for a mission. 

He shakes his head. “No.”

“You know you might have to eventually, right?”

“I know.”

“Well when you’re ready, we can do it together if you want.”

Keith leans his head onto Matt’s shoulder. “I would like that, I think.”

Matt presses a kiss to Keith’s hair and sighs. “Whenever you want. I’ll be there.” 

Keith knows they need to rendezvous with the others. They need to debrief with Voltron, Kolivan, the rebels, they need to regroup and reorganize so they can move forward.

But not right now. 

The war can wait a minute longer.

**Author's Note:**

> Personal Author Anecdote:
> 
> Keith's experiences in this fic are based off when I used to do taekwondo. When I was taking a belt exam and they had me sparring for _ever_ and it was really intense. Bear in mind, this is not like the stupid point sparring they do some places where you land one hit and they break it up, no, where I come from no match is over until both of you are on the floor and someone is forced to tap out. Anyway so I'd been fighting for _ever_ and when I'm finally done I take off my gear and go get water. But I feel so _weird_ like I was trembling kinda hard and breathing felt unnecessarily difficult and wrong and I was dizzy and just so fucked up, and my mentor came out to check on me. He was like are you okay? I was like yeah, I'm fine and then I immediatly burst into tears and I couldn't calm down for a whole 10 minutes. Fun Fact: "What's _wrong_ with me?" is a direct quote from those 10 minutes. 
> 
> TL;DR when your body's been in fight-or-flight mode for a while, you can feel really shitty. I tried to communicate this through Keith as clearly as I could based on my own experiences.


End file.
